The present invention relates to training surgeons and technicians in performing orthopedic surgical procedures such as joint repairs and joint replacements and is related particularly to instruction including performing procedures on cadaver parts or animal parts.
It is well known to use parts of cadavers or animal skeletal joints in training surgeons and technicians in various joint repair or replacement techniques. For fully effective training with respect to joint repairs in humans, however, practice on a human cadaver joint is a practical necessity. This is particularly true in becoming familiar with installation of new types of joint prostheses or with new techniques for installation of joint replacements.
While instructional use of cadaver body parts is very desirable, cadavers are quite costly, and it is desired not to waste the cadavers that are available by using an entire cadaver limb for practice of a procedure involving only one joint of that limb. Although it is desirable for procedures to be performed in a manner which realistically simulates performance of such a procedure on an actual patient, it is preferable and more economical to use only a smaller part, such as a knee joint, of a cadaver leg, since only the needed knee or other joint has to be purchased and shipped. This also leaves the remaining portions of the cadaver leg available for use by others.
In performing instruction concerning surgical joint repair procedures, conditions should simulate those of an actual surgical procedure as closely as practical, so that, for example, the training procedures can include reference to parts of a patient connected with but not actually part of a joint which is being repaired. Instructional conditions should also include being able to hold a joint used in a training procedure in a position similar to the position of that joint while it is being surgically repaired or replaced in a living patient. In the past, however, there has not been any particularly effective and economical way to use an animal joint or a cadaver part in connection with surgical instruction so as to simulate actual surgical conditions closely, yet without waste of cadaver parts not actually needed in the instructional procedure to be performed.
What is needed, then, is an apparatus and a method for instruction in and practice of surgical procedures on actual human cadaver parts or similar animal parts, with those parts presented in a manner realistically simulating conditions to be encountered during performance of similar procedures in living patients. Such apparatus desirably would be able to permit adjustment of the location and orientation of a cadaver part to simulate the possibilities available in actual surgical situations, but without the apparatus being unduly costly or large. Ideally the apparatus could be easily transported and would be self-contained, so that it could be used in various types of surroundings.